The cultural hodgepodge that is Europe

If Geert Hofstede’s name is familiar to you, it might be from pop-science articles explaining a spate of Korean airliner crashes in the 1990s. A widely held theory placed some of the blame on the hierarchical nature of Korean culture; this made the junior pilot reluctant to mention any mistakes made by his superior. If he noticed the captain heading for a hillside, he might summon up the courage to mutter, ‘Perhaps, honoured sir, you might like to pay particular attention to the interesting terrain.’ This contrasts with low ‘power distance’ cultures: New Zealand, say, or Ireland. On Aer Lingus, a stewardess could jab the pilot in the ribs and say, ‘Watch you don’t fecking crash, you gobshite!’

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Druin Burch

Lucy Letby and the killer nurse I worked with

Hofstede originally scored different cultures on four different dimensions. These were later expanded to six: Power distance, as mentioned above, was one.